If Wishes Were Horses
by Redconky
Summary: Branson thinks on what might have been if Mrs. Hughes hadn't cut short his conversation with Sybil at the garden party, when his thoughts are interrupted by an unexpected visitor.


**If wishes were horses**

Rating: "T"

**Summary**: Branson thinks on what might have been if Mrs. Hughes hadn't cut short his conversation with Sybil at the garden party, when his thoughts are interrupted by an unexpected visitor.

**Author's Note**: I understand in the name of moving the whole storyline ahead there are moments between Branson and Sybil that occurred between the declaration of war on Aug. 4, 1914 (the end of Season 1) and the Battle of the Somme, which rages between July 1-November 1916 (and opens Season 2) to which the audience was not privy. Here is one of the scenes I've imagined could account for the increased emotional intimacy between our favorite chauffer and Lady Sybil before he declares his love for her – from my _mind cannon_, so to speak. I'm trying to stick as close to the real cannon as possible, at least in spirit if not in practice. As in all my fics, _characters' thoughts are in_ _italics_.

It was all a bit of a blur now, thinking back about the events of the day. One moment, Tom Branson was with Sybil – Lady Sybil to him, as he was reminded by everyone around him daily – and Gwen, engaged in a group hug celebrating Gwen's new job, and the next, England was at war with Germany. As he sat outside of the garage on a chair, looking up at the stars and taking in the cooler evening air, he replayed the scenes from earlier, trying to analyze what every little interaction with the youngest Crawley daughter meant.

"I don't suppose—" he had started to ask before Mrs. Hughes had cut him off.

"Lady Sybil, her ladyship was asking after you." Sybil shot a look of slight incredulity towards the head housemaid, and then turned to Branson. Sybil dutifully headed towards her mother, knowing full well it was a diversion invented by Mrs. Hughes to separate them – and their intertwined hands.

"Be careful, my lad – or you'll end up with no job and a broken heart."

"What do you mean?" Tom asked softly.

Mrs. Hughes sighed and looked at Branson, conveying a mixture of disapproval and sympathy before walking away.

Oh, how he'd wanted to finish that sentence! He couldn't recall a time when he felt more vexed by an interruption. Before the news of the war came, it had been an ideal summer's day: hardly a cloud in the sky with a lovely breeze rustling through the trees and blowing Lady Sybil's skirt just enough to reveal a bit more leg. It wasn't so much to be vulgar or scandalous, but any revelation fed his overactive imagination.

"_I don't suppose . . . your ladyship would let me escort you into the shade of the woods where I could lean you against a large tree and snog you senseless." No, that wouldn't have gone over. Then again, she did look at me as if to say silently with her eyes that she was just as annoyed with Mrs. Hughes's ruse to separate us as I was._

Even with the window open, the air in the cottage felt stagnant, leading Tom to come outside in just his uniform pants, boots, and slightly open shirt to stare up at the sky. He could not sleep. He thought about how ages ago, men would gaze at the night sky, searching for their fates which they believed to be etched in the stars, but like them, he could not clearly discern his future. So instead of pondering things to come, he reflected on the very recent past. He kept thinking about the brief moment he had been able to hold her, even if it was only half of her. Tom was doing his best to commit every sensation he had experienced to memory: the softness of her white cotton dress, the silkiness of her raven tresses, the flowery scent emanating from her alabaster neck, the way her sky blue eyes had shown with excitement, the giddiness in her squeal of laughter, and the sure yet gentle way she had embraced his back with her right arm. He closed his eyes while he replayed this memory, slowing it down frame-by-frame like a motion picture, until a soft voice interrupted his reverie.

"Branson?"

His eyes flew open and his head jerked slightly in the direction of the voice.

_It couldn't be – it had to be a mirage. But don't those only occur in the desert? Perhaps it was a delusion or a waking dream. Maybe I fell asleep and I'm dreaming that I have awoken. This surely can't be reality._

"Branson, are you alright?"

"I'm sorry, milady – I guess you startled me. What can I do for you?" Tom said as he rose to his feet to gaze at Sybil.

"I came out for a walk because I couldn't sleep. Then I saw you sitting alone. I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong."

Lots of things were wrong. The drums of war were beginning to beat. Ireland was without home rule. The economic and social disparities between classes led to a plethora of injustices on a daily basis. Yet at that moment, seeing Sybil in her open-necked nightgown with her burgundy silk robe hanging loosely off of her slight frame, feet nearly sliding out of her slippers, and the wind blowing back her hair tied with a blue ribbon in a loose ponytail, nothing _felt_ wrong. _Maybe that shooting star I wished on earlier actually delivered._

"I'm alright, relatively speaking. I mean, besides the obvious. Is that why you couldn't sleep?"

"Yes, that and . . . other reasons." _I can't tell him what was really keeping me awake. I can't say that I can't stop thinking about how even though it had been a sunny afternoon that I longed to feel the warmth that radiated from his side, or how I wanted our fingers to be interlaced once more. I also can't touch that small, soft-looking tuft of chest hair sticking out from his slightly unbuttoned shirt. Damnable social conventions!_

"Anything you care to discuss?" Tom said as he waved his hand in the direction of the chair, silently inviting her to take it.

"No, I can't do that – you were sitting there."

"It's my chair. I can choose who gets to use it. Right now, I choose you."

"Do you have another chair?"

"No."

"So what will you do?"

"I can stand."

"Well, that hardly seems conducive for good conversation."

Tom thought a moment.

"Please, wait here. I'll be right back."

Tom ducked into the cottage and went to his closet. He located what he was seeking, grabbed it, and headed back out into the night air.

"If we don't completely unfold it, it will give us a little bit of cushion between us and the ground," he said as his displayed the woolen blanket.

"Brilliant!" Sybil said with a smile. "Why don't we put an edge of it against the wall, so we can lean against it and stretch out our legs on the blanket?"

"Precisely what I was thinking," Tom grinned back. _Stop it – you're going to look like a bloody fool._

The two carefully unfolded the blanket so it was lengthwise. When they partially unfurled it, it was wide enough so they could sit next to each other with space between them, but not so much space that they would be separated by more than several inches. They made sure it didn't bunch up so they could both be comfortable.

The two sat down, with Sybil taking the left side and Tom taking the right.

"Right," Tom began. "So, milady, what demons are keeping sleep at bay?"

"Don't worry about 'lady' and 'milady' when it's just the two of us. I bristle at such pretense." This brought another smile to Tom's face. "I don't know if you could call them demons. I suppose they're more on the order of . . . preoccupations."

"I see. So something is troubling you?"

"Not troubling so much as . . . distracting."

"Is someone bothering you? Do I need to beat off some unworthy suitor?"

The thought of Branson – Tom, she kept telling herself – beating up some man who was irritating her was oddly pleasurable.

"If that were true, and if we were in medieval times, I would then have the power to grant you knighthood."

"Ah, but I would have to refuse it because I would feel as if I was ignoring the plight of the peasants."

"But wouldn't you have more power as a knight to lobby the king for more favorable conditions for the masses?"

"I suppose. But could you imagine a knight back then proposing a minimum hourly wage and a five-day workweek?"

Sybil laughed aloud. "I guess it would have sounded ridiculous."

"Ridiculous? I believe the king's response would have been to make him the star of a hanging or beheading."

Sybil snickered. "Sadly, punishment was sold as entertainment back then."

"In some places, it still is." Tom didn't mean for their lighthearted conversation to take a dark turn for fear it would be off-putting. Serious topics were one thing, but somber thoughts were in a far less desirable category.

"Seriously, is there anything I can do to drive the bad thoughts from your head tonight?"

_That's a loaded question if there ever was one_, Sybil thought as her eyes met his_. You could lean in right now and kiss me. You could wrap me completely in your solid arms. You could stroke my hair and whisper in my ear that I have nothing to fear and that everything will be all right. Even if that was a lie, and we both knew it, I'd believe it for at least tonight because you'd say it so sweetly in that lovely lilting Irish brogue._

Instead, Sybil did something that she couldn't decide was either really brave or really reckless. She took Tom's hand that was lying between them on the blanket and clasped it in her own. She was shocked by her own bravado, but given the jolts of electricity she felt as he squeezed her hand in response, she could not feel any sense of shame.

"What did your mother do when you couldn't sleep? When you were a child, I mean?" she asked.

"Sometimes she would sing to us, sometimes she would tell us a story. If there was a thunderstorm, she'd sing. If it was just the normal children's behavior of resisting sleep, she would tell us a story – sometimes a fairy tale, sometimes a story she made up. What did your mother do?" he asked as his thumb caressed the back of her thumb and the part of the heel of her hand. Sybil felt her breath catch at the movement, but she did her best not to show her mixture of elation and nervousness as she continued their discussion.

"Too often, it wasn't mama. It was usually a nanny or a maid who would tuck us in at night. Once in awhile, Carson would do the job if for some reason the nanny or the maids weren't available. He was an excellent storyteller. He could do the booming voices of the villains quite convincingly and then he'd do the high falsetto of the damsel in distress and the other females. It was such a radical difference between them we'd giggle until our sides hurt," Sybil said with a wide smile at the happy memory.

"I'll bet those were great performances," Tom said with a smile of his own. He remembered a rumor he'd heard in the servants' hall about Carson having a theatre background, and this story added more credibility to that tale. Not knowing if Sybil was privy to that piece of information, he decided not to share it – for the time being.

"Why couldn't you sleep?" she asked as he dusted off his thighs with his right hand.

_Because I couldn't get your glowing face out of my mind, nor your soft curves. I couldn't stop thinking how I wanted to hold you again and not let you go._ As these thoughts came to mind that he wasn't ready to share, Tom gently intertwined his fingers with Sybil's, resuming the position they were in hours earlier. He looked up from their joined hands and his eyes became locked with hers. He couldn't bring himself to outright lie, but he couldn't reveal the full truth, either.

"I was thinking how unfair life is," he began. "People with more power dictate the fates of others without their input. Take the war, for example. How many men who were at the party today will still be standing when the war ends? How many will be swept away by conscription? 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars—' "

"But in ourselves, that we are underlings," Sybil finished the quote by Shakespeare. "What you're saying is no one has the right to end another's life, either directly or indirectly, such as through a draft or through killing strangers?" Tom grinned at this observation.

"That, and how a person lives his or her life. Why should anyone, based on birth, determine what education someone will receive, or the kind of work a person will do, or if he or she will be able to vote—"

"Or whom they can marry," Sybil said with a note of sadness in her voice. Tom knew she wasn't thinking in the abstract now, but on a personal level. He squeezed her hand again, this time to offer a bit of comfort. This time, she squeezed back.

"Have you ever heard of Mary Wollstonecraft's book _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_?"

"No, I can't say that I have."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised – it's not the kind of book your father would keep in the library. I could try to get a copy if you're interested."

"Could you? I'm not sure if it's the type of book the bookshop in Ripon would carry, but I could ask next time I'm there."

"I have to warn you, it might raise some eyebrows if you do."

"Eyebrows be damned. Women are being arrested simply because they have the audacity to ask to vote. I don't care if I cause a bit of a stir."

"That much is obvious, based upon your defense of me to your father after the events at the count. This is the first chance I've had to properly thank you for that."

"How did you know?"

"When I drove him home that night, Mr. Matthew let slip the results of your shouting match between you and your father. I think he wanted me to know it was mostly you who had saved my job."

"It was my fault you were in hot water in the first place. It was the least I could do."

"You couldn't have really meant it though – that you would have run away."

"Actually, I did. I already feel like the outsider as it is. Sometimes I wonder if I was left in a basket on the doorstep instead of being born into the family." Tom chuckled. "Are you laughing at me?"

"No, milady, I'm laughing _with_ you. I'm an outsider downstairs. Carson gets hot under the collar whenever I talk politics and he does all he can to discourage my socialist rants in the servants' hall."

"So we're Downton's misfits?" _Maybe that's why we fit together_, Sybil thought. She then yawned and covered her mouth with her free hand.

"I think it's time, milady, that you went to bed." _My bed's just this way – stop it! One of these days the ideas that pass through your mind will pass your lips and you'll be in a world of hurt_. He let go of her hand temporarily so he could stand up. He then offered both of his hands to her to grab onto to help her up.

"I suppose you're right," she replied with a sigh as she rose. "But please, again, when it's just you and me, please don't call me 'lady' or 'milady.' "

"What should I call you then?" he asked softly, both sets of their hands still clasped together.

"Sybil," she said while meeting his gaze and taking a step closer to him.

"If you really feel that way, I think I could only do that if you called me by my given name," he said as he also took a step to close the distance.

"Alright – Tom," she said with a quick, nervous laugh.

"Thank you . . . Sybil," he replied with a nervous chuckle of his own. Although he dreaded breaking the contact, he tried to soften the blow by squeezing her hands before releasing them. She had squeezed back just before he let go.

"Are you sure you don't need help putting away the chair and the blanket?" she asked, seeking an excuse to linger.

"Thanks, but I'll manage. Pleasant dreams," he said just above a whisper.

"You, too," she replied as she walked backwards towards the house. She did this for several paces, and then finally turned her back so she could walk faster towards the house. _Perhaps if I hurry to bed, I'll dream of him tonight._

Tom wished she could have stayed. He wished they could have talked longer, or done other things besides talk. He wished the social chasm between them didn't exist. Then he remembered something his mother often said: _If wishes were horses, poor men would ride_.

He may be poor, but he resolved to ride, one day, off into the sunset – with Sybil.

**Second Author's Note**: Reviews are greatly appreciated! I was listening to Keane's new song, "Silenced by the Night," which indirectly inspired this fic. I think the song suits them and if anyone with video editing talent wants inspiration for a fanvids, I strongly suggest it. Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed it!


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